[Letters] The fanciful idea of statist ‘efficiency’

The failures of energy facilities following Japan’s earthquake once more testify to the calamities innate in statism. The state’s system of monopoly privilege is rigid, unresponsive and therefore brittle.

Important areas of the economy like power infrastructure are typically among those most concentrated in the fewest hands, the least competitive and sequestered from true free markets. Their monopoly status allows them to demand from the consumer a high “restrictionist price” with no rational relationship to actual market forces.

The wasteful activities that make up the bulk of the statist economy would fall apart if the coercion necessary to hold it all together was absent. Although we could hardly imagine a more inefficient system, it will continue as long as we defend it on behalf of those who benefit from it.

David D’Amato, a market lawyer